Orlando Magic’s frustration is real, but faith remains
The Orlando Magic are down right now in the midst of a 13 losses in 15 games stretch. But faith remains that they can right the ship. It must to do so.
Final. 100. 38. 115. 89
Finding that last bit of energy and effort is never easy. Especially when you are down 20 points and the life has been sucked out of you by a six-game losing streak and a stretch of 12 losses in 14 games.
The losses and lack of confidence build and build on top of each other. Accruing like a snowball rolling down a hill. Life for the Magic is not easy.
The positives for this team come only in momentary glimpses. Like Victor Oladipo chasing a turnover with no hope of catching up to the player who stole it for a dunk. This is the habit the Magic want to foster and build. Not the kind that has the team put their heads down and watch Kenyon Martin go for a breakaway jam.
This is a results league though. Players are judged by their production. Coaches are judged by their wins.
Right now no one on the Magic is producing. As nice as those moments of solid play and positivity are, they do not matter if they do not come together and build into a run and then, eventually into a win.
With so many losses piling up, it feels like the Magic are about as far away from a win as can be. Even speaking nouns that commence on a ‘w’ seems preposterous at this point.
Not after the Magic defense failed them again in a 115-100 loss at Amway Center on Thursday. Not after Jacque Vaughn said he felt the Magic had a good shootaround and Victor Oladipo said the gameplan was solid entering the game. Milwaukee never trailed and led by as much as 29 points.
“It happens like that sometimes,” Victor Oladipo said. “We’ve just got to find a way to win. We’ve got to be prepared to play from the jump. It’s just plain and simple, we’ve got to find ways to win.
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It was every bit as disheartening and disappointing a loss as there could be. Fans were booing entering timeouts as Vaughn tried everything to spur his team on. No adjustments worked. The Bucks’ length was too much and they clogged the lanes forcing the Magic into turnovers.
Orlando could not impose its will, either by pace or otherwise, against this monstrous defense.
You could see heads droop and the team’s body language take on a negative tone. Fans sensed it too, frustrated with the team’s lacking effort at times and the way they let frustration slow them down.
“I think we can’t get away from doing what has been successful and force that,” Tobias Harris said. “So playing with each other, I think we have got away with playing together and just trickling it down to the next guy, to the next guy, to the next guy. You know it is just a different vibe right now.”
The important thing is not how the Magic got down or what caused all this. Jacque Vaughn’s future as head coach — Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel reported the Magic have not ruled out making an in-season coaching change, the first public fire perhaps to alert the coach or fans of dissatisfaction — it is what the Magic do to pick themselves back up.
How do they go from despondent to resilient? From resilient to consistent? And consistent to victorious?
This is not as simple as changing a coach or changing an identity or philosophy. The Magic have already tried changing their identity and rotation. It is about finding the right group of guys to play hard, set a tone and keep it going, taking the punches when they come.
The Magic have not found that formula yet. They may not find it consistently. But they have to make some sort of push onward and upward to give hope. Sometimes that might mean doing the simplest things first and foremost.
“It’s a number of things,” Willie Green said of the team’s struggles. “More importantly, whatever it is, we have to come to the arena and come to the game willing, everyone, to go full out. It’s difficult when you go on a losing streak because things can kind of get out of whack. But we’ve got to find a way to get on the right track and get a win here soon.”
The worry at this point is allowing losing habits — those lackluster effort plays — creep in and the team take losing as a norm rather than as a growing pain to go through. There is the belief from a veteran like Willie Green that this team is determined to find their way out of this rut. It is just that they do not know how.
The other worry is that the team and its players lose confidence. That they lose belief and trust in each other and lose belief and trust in themselves. Oladipo said confidence is the one thing that can never waver for this team. This game is so much about mental focus no matter what happens.
“A lot of this game is mental,” Oladipo said. “We’ve got to try to find a stronger mental approach when things go bad and when things go well. A lot of the game is mental. We’ve got to fix our mental in order to fix everything else.”
The games will not stop while the Magic figure things out. They have to keep playing with aggression and confidence.
There remains confidence that there are better days ahead for the Magic. Oladipo believes it.
For now, faith is all we have to go on.